Are many iPhone game developers using 16bpp (as opposed to 32bpp 8888 ARGB) for textures?

Also, what's the ideal format for using 16bpp textures on iPhone projects? (4444 / 5551 / something else).

Any other thoughts on 16bpp textures?

Thanks,

We haven't even come close to running out of VRAM for our games so we've stuck with 32bit textures for simplicity.

I don't really think there is a "best" 16 bit format. Assuming the hardware actually supports 4444, 5551, and 565 formats, it really depends on what you need it for. Do you need smooth alpha, just knockout alpha, or no alpha at all.

It's not really for my needs, I'm just trying to assess the needs of iPhone game developers in general.

We've been using 32 bit PNGs for everything we can. I think 16 bit looks like crap and we haven't needed it. The only stuff that really sucks up memory have been sprite animations, for which we use PVRTC for the animated frames and 32 bit PNGs for static frames, because PVRTC tends to look crappy with alpha but you can't see the artifacts when in motion. Backgrounds which don't need translucency are also great candidates for PVRTC.